Edifice Atelier

Message from the Director of Education:

“My personal aim is to sustain a close-knit yet diverse intellectual and creative community that excels in design, teaching and research.

It is an honour to be the Senior Teaching Fellow and the Director of Education at the Edifice Atelier Institute, primarily because of the intelligent and entrepreneurial nature of our professional intensive students and Guilds members, and the outstanding initiatives of our Academic Fellows.

As we move forward to create new and innovative professional intensive and continuing education courses, I look forward to introducing new Teaching Fellows at the Atelier.”

Dr. Christopher Cooper

Our Mandate:

Canada’s premier atelier program in traditional skills established in 2002, to provide a robust response to the challenges presented by the absence of knowledge and skills in Canada. We are actively involved in developing and delivering a broad based demand-led education and training program, to equip individuals and organizations, locally and throughout North America, with the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the current and future conservation, repair and maintenance requirements of our traditional buildings.

The Edifice Atelier’s other core belief is that aspiring architectural designers are not being taught the fundamentals of hand drafting, rendering, painting, sculpting, and understanding geometry and proportion and the art of classical and traditional architecture. A third of our programs and short courses are dedicated to these lost arts. We are hoping to inspire a 21st century renaissance of traditional architecture.

Our Commitment:

The Edifice Atelier offers high quality research-informed hands-on studies, professionally focused programs and technical skills to help you achieve your future entrepreneurial career path. By creating knowledge with our 35 years of expertise and research, sharing information through our courses and making business and client connections through acceptance into the Edifice Guild of Master Craftsmen, we help enable our Professional Intensive students to realize their potential and achieve life-changing outcomes.

The Oxford Campus:

Located at the Edifice Atelier facility in Oxford County, Ontario (15 minutes west of Cambridge), we operate out of our own fully-equipped, classroom/training facility, in an early 19th century wonderfully preserved Neo-Classical homestead providing an ideal environment for training in traditional skills. Living laboratory campuses are planned throughout Ontario and Nova Scotia in 2018/19.

All of our live, hands-on courses and workshops will soon be available through distance learning from anywhere in the world.

Many of our professional intensive’ will return for the 2018/19 academic year! Check back often.